Greetings! Here are the topics for today’s column:

• Russia’s War on Ukraine
• Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts
• Control of Education
• One More Thing

RUSSIA’S WAR ON UKRAINE:

It was a busy Monday for President Donald Trump, who met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Then he and Zelenskyy met with several top European leaders for about five hours to discuss how to end the war. 

Trump said on Truth Social that he called Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of the meeting. (Source)

It appears that Trump will try to arrange a meeting soon between Zelenskyy and Putin. Trump also said he was willing to help police any peace deal. (Source)

Meanwhile, the killing goes on as Russia launched 140 drone strikes in Ukraine Sunday night. Several people were killed, including a whole family who were in an apartment building that was hit. (Source)

MONTANANS FOR NONPARTISAN COURTS:

There’s another effort to keep judicial elections in Montana nonpartisan, according to Lee Newspapers.  

Lee Newspapers reports:

Montana officially has two campaigns jockeying to be the champion of nonpartisan judicial elections, a status quo that certain political groups argue is under increasing threat.

The two groups have separately submitted proposed language for their respective ballot initiatives to achieve the same goal: warding off future efforts to put party labels on campaigns for judicial candidates. However, the two campaigns are each taking their own approaches with the language they propose for the Montana Constitution to reach that objective.

Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts officially launched its campaign on Friday. The first campaign out of the chute was Montanans for Fair and Impartial Judges, which submitted the paperwork in July.

I am in favor of nonpartisan judicial elections. 

You can visit the Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts website HERE. 

The Montanans for Fair and Impartial Judges website can be found HERE.

CONTROL OF EDUCATION:

The Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction, Susie Hedalen, has an opinion piece that appeared in some newspapers across the state in which she says, “Control of education belongs in Montana.” Read it HERE.  

I agree with that statement.  

Hedalen also says that Montana families have always believed in the value of a strong education rooted in common sense, academic rigor, and local control.

She talks about federal funding and that “these federal funds have undergone a thorough review by the Trump administration, ensuring they support students directly, rather than being swallowed up by federal bureaucracy or ideological agendas. For too long, federal dollars have come with strings attached. Strings that often push progressive policies into our schools without regard for the unique needs and values of our communities.” 

I hate to break the news to Superintendent Hedalen, but federal funding always has strings attached. The ideological agendas she is worried about may not now be the progressive type, but will now be the MAGA agenda.

Readers may remember that Superintendent Hedalen was recently cited for Driving Under the Influence (DUI). She apologized. (Source) I think she should have resigned. 

If I had my way, elected officials who are arrested for DUI would automatically lose their elected position. Drunk driving shows poor judgment and can kill people. Maybe someone in the Montana Legislature will draft a bill to do just that. 

ONE MORE THING:

Of all the inventions of the last hundred years, the dry-erase board is the most remarkable…

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